Former Czech president Václav Havel is set to be honored by the City of Paris with a library in the French capital being named after him. Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë announced the initiative in his New Year’s Day address to citizens.
“I want to honor one of the greatest artists, one of the greatest statesmen, and one of the finest fighters for freedom,” the socialist mayor declared.
The library in question is being completed in the Pajol area of Paris’ 18th district, known for its former bohemian neighborhood of Montmarte, the Moulin Rouge cabaret, Pigalle theater and red light district. The library should be completed in 2013, offering Parisians a choice from around 30,000 works.
Havel, who died at the age of 75 on Dec. 18 at his country home, was a playwright and writer who came to symbolize the fight for human rights in former Czechoslovakia during the clampdown by the communist regime after the Soviet bloc-led invasion of the country in 1968 to restore hardline conformity with Moscow.
‘I want to honor one of the greatest artists, one of the greatest statesmen, and one of the finest fighters for freedom.’
He later led the so-called Velvet Revolution that overthrew communism at the end of 1989, becoming Czechoslovak and then Czech president. Out of public office, but rarely out of the spotlight, Havel continued to speak up for human rights throughout the world.
The Parisian initiative comes as with a debate still raging in the Czech Republic about how best to honor Havel. A controversial proposal to rename Prague’s main international airport after him was raised in the Cabinet on Wednesday but a final decision postponed until the spring. A monument, perhaps in Prague’s central Wenceslas Square where mass protests signaled the demise of the more than 40-year-old communist regime, has been suggested, although Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09) cautioned that he could not think of an artist who would not come up with some sort of kitsch memorial.
Paris mayor Delanoë pulled off a shock victory when he overcame the long right-wing domination of the capital in elections in 2001, being reelected in 2008. He has frequently taken a stand backing human right worldwide, for example by making a prisoner on death row in the US and a fighter to protect the Amazonian rain forest both Parisian citizens of honor. Delanoë publicly admitted he was gay in 1998.
